Christmas, Part Two

The twins' curiosity was famously strong. Aya was gnawing on a chicken wing and didn't want to pay them any attention, but George reached out and pulled at her cheek, leaning in for a closer look at her cat tongue.

Then he got bitten.

"Merlin! Did you have to bite that deep?" George clutched his wrist, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Four sharp tooth marks had appeared on the inside and outside of his wrist, left by Aya's slightly protruding little canines. "It's even bleeding!"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. You shouldn't be Miss Cat. You should be Miss Dog," Fred said gleefully. He watched Aya finish a chicken wing, then handed her another skewer and continued watching her spin.

"What are you doing?" When Harry and Ron returned to the common room, soaking wet, they saw Aya spinning in circles.

"Oh, just in time. Let Miss Windmill fan you off-" George said.

"The price is just one roast chicken wing~" Fred chimed in.

"Roast chicken legs!" Ron exclaimed, delighted to spot his favorite food in the fireplace. "You've finally done something decent for once!" he praised the twins.

"Go away, go away. These aren't for you!" Fred and George stood guard around them, refusing to let the glutton get close. "If you want some, roast them yourself. We already stole all the chicken legs, and you still expect us to roast them for you? Why don't you just fly to the moon?"

Ron pursed his lips and took off his wet coat, but he still wouldn't give up. He reached for the skewered chicken legs on the plate, only for Aya to slap his hand away. "Those are mine!"

When it came to guarding her food, Aya was a professional.

Ron cursed under his breath as he carried a plate of unskewered meat to another fireplace. Harry came over and took some vegetables and skewers.

Aya never stopped eating. She leaned against the enlarged Xiaohua, feeling very full. Fred and George came over and leaned against the giant cat too, eating and chatting, while Harry and Ron were already playing Wizard's Chess on the sofa by the fireplace on the other side.

Aya was alone in the dormitory. She stayed in the common room until she was the last one there before returning to her room to rest.

When she woke up the next morning, she was pleasantly surprised to find Duoduo sitting on the floor at the foot of her bed, sorting her presents.

"Good morning, Aya!" Duoduo was full of energy. She pointed to several gift boxes on the floor. "There are more than ten presents!"

"Presents?" Aya jumped out of bed, grabbed the nearest one and opened it. Inside was a beautifully wrapped packet of sweets. "Hmm, from Headmaster Dumbledore?"

"Yes!" Duoduo said happily.

"So you get presents at Christmas!" Aya finally understood. She had to remember the date. No wonder new maps, new clothes and new events had always appeared around this time before. It really was a major holiday.

"Friends should give presents in return too." Duoduo knew Aya was unfamiliar with some basic things, so she thoughtfully reminded her.

Aya quickly opened the rest of the presents. Besides the boxes from her friends, there were several from older schoolgirls who always liked to sit with her at meals. Most were snacks, but Aya also received a red bow from Madam Malkin and a knitted hat from Duoduo.

"It's so pretty!" Aya put on the light-colored knitted hat and shook her head. It had two pointed spaces for her ears, so she didn't feel any discomfort from them being squashed. "Thank you, Duoduo~"

"I'm glad you like it, Aya!" Duoduo replied in a high-pitched voice. "But I have to go. There's a Christmas dinner in the Great Hall tonight, and there will be lots of delicious food!"

"Okay-" Aya replied, and the House-elf vanished with a pop.

Aya packed all the snacks she had received that day into a small shoulder bag. There were too many strange and unusual materials in the Wizarding World. Even though she only put purple-quality materials in her backpack, it was already full. It was time to go to Snape and free up some space.

"What?!" Ron and Harry were sitting in the common room, comparing the similar sweaters they were wearing. When Harry saw that Aya was going out so early in the morning, he was astonished. "On such a wonderful day, you're actually going to see Snape?"

"What's wrong? Isn't starting a new day by making money a wonderful thing?" She tilted her head.

"Where are you making money?" Ron admitted he was curious. His family wasn't well-off, and he had little pocket money. He had suffered from a lack of money for a long time.

"Selling materials to Professor Snape." Aya patted her bag. "Last time I made fifty Galleons to buy sweets!"

"Yeah, right!" Ron immediately refused to believe her. They were all eleven years old. Where could she have found something to sell to the old bat for fifty Galleons?

"Want to bet?" Aya immediately stopped in the middle of stepping out of the common room and teleported to Ron's side.

"...I believe you. Hope you make ten thousand Galleons today," Ron said numbly.

Aya left, disappointed.

Most of the professors at Hogwarts were single, so they generally chose to stay at school for Christmas. Aya knew Snape was in the dungeons, which was why she had come over so early. She still had to think about return gifts in a little while.

Snape had truly had enough. Christmas was a rare holiday without Trolls. He had stayed up late making potions until the small hours last night, and this morning he should have enjoyed a peaceful, leisurely lie-in, then gotten up at nine for a simple, delicious breakfast. Instead, someone knocked on the door of his sitting room at seven.

Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock!

The knocking made Snape's temples throb along with it.

Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock!

All she knew how to do was knock!

Wearing a black dressing gown and his most venomous expression, Snape opened the dungeon door. Hogwarts swear word, the person outside couldn't read the room!

"I think you should know that your poor Potions Class professor is currently on holiday and has no obligation to deal with you little Trolls!" Snape really wanted to slam the door shut, but a certain cat-eared blockhead had already ducked under the arm he had braced against the doorframe and slipped inside.

"I'm here to sell materials!" Aya looked around. The sparkles in Snape's office hadn't refreshed yet, so she regretfully looked away. "My backpack can't hold any more, so I have to sell some." The last time she came, she hadn't been willing to part with the materials she had collected, so she hadn't cleared out her inventory.

Aya had something of a collecting habit, which she had caught from her player. The player was a hundred-percent completionist who kept one of everything in her warehouse, even useless junk. As a result, Aya had picked up the bad habit too. If her backpack, warehouse and chests weren't all full, she would definitely have kept one of each for her collection.

"What materials this time?" Hearing that she had materials, Snape finally managed to suppress some of his bad mood from being woken up.

"Blue materials!" Aya stood in front of Snape's desk and began pulling them out.

"What blue?" Snape frowned, then watched as the materials piled higher and higher on the desk. From Mandrake to Dittany, from Whirling Stone to Sunlight Orchid, from Ashwinder eggs to peppermint... There were nearly sixty kinds of materials in all, covering an enormous range. Even at a Potions materials shop in Diagon Alley, it would be difficult to gather them all at once.

"Blue!" Aya rummaged through her backpack and, only after confirming there were none left, spread her arms wide. "Give me a price, merchant!"

"..." Snape restrained himself, but still gave her a cold glare. After roughly estimating a figure, he asked, "Against your debt or cash?"

"How much of my debt can it cover?" Aya asked curiously. She still had Galleons in her bag, so she wasn't worried about being short of pocket money.

"Hmm..." To be honest, Snape very much wanted to be a dishonest merchant at that moment. But if this blockhead found out, it would be hard to say whether he could obtain a unicorn horn as fresh as the last one from her again. So, with difficulty, he gave her a fair and reasonable price. "Seventy Galleons."

Aya's favorability +1.

As she was preparing to leave the dungeons, Aya instinctively remembered the matter of Christmas presents. After hesitating, she spent some time picking through a pile of purple materials and chose a Thunderbird Feather. But just as she pulled it out, she remembered that Snape hadn't given her a present at all. She put it back in her bag a second later and left.

Aya's favorability -1.

Snape had seen that Thunderbird Feather!

It was still in the freshest possible condition. He had thought it was the grand finale, but unexpectedly, Aya had put it straight back after taking it out, then turned and left.

What did that mean?

Was she just showing off?

If Snape hadn't been wearing his dressing gown, he would have wanted to follow her and snatch it!

Aya strolled to the Great Hall for breakfast, then, during the meal, handed out cakes she thought were delicious in front of everyone as return gifts.

"I thought I was already stingy enough," Ron said, admitting defeat.

"Er, thanks? At least I've got another Christmas present..." Harry accepted the lemon cake with both hands, doing his best to make his expression look normal.

"Good." Aya looked around. Everyone except Percy had received a return gift from her, because Percy hadn't given her a present. She picked through the food on the table and, given that Dumbledore had previously seemed to have a red name, chose a baguette for him.

"Trying to murder the headmaster? Heh, interesting." Fred stroked his chin and spoke with an air of feigned profundity.

"This murder weapon will definitely knock all of Headmaster Dumbledore's teeth out before he has time to drink a teeth-strengthening potion," George added, helping Aya saw the wood. Aya was quite fond of the bread she could grind her teeth on, and it would be even better toasted.

"Teeth-strengthening potion?" Aya was spreading butter with a knife. Hearing an unfamiliar term, she looked up and asked, "Can your teeth get sick?"

"Much as I'd like to deny it," Ron muttered, "Mum's right. Eating too many sweets gives you toothaches, especially for kids like us who are still losing our baby teeth. She never lets me eat too many."

"Hermione's parents are dentists, and she's never been very enthusiastic about sweets," Harry added.

"I think your teeth should go bad too. That would be normal," Ron said confidently. "You eat way more sweets than we do."

"No, they won't!" Aya said angrily. She had never been ill!

Angry as she was, she stood up and looked around with some puzzlement. Everyone sitting together except her was wearing a sweater of a similar style.

"Are you excluding me?" She put her hands on her hips and glared at Harry, who was closest. "Fine, those four are Weasleys, but Harry, what gives you the right to exclude me?"

"Me?" Harry pointed at himself in confusion. He didn't even know when he had excluded anyone.

Fred was the first to catch on. Smiling, he looked at the Weasley-brand sweaters on the group around him. "Miss Cat, we're not excluding you. These are Christmas presents from our mum."

Aya thought about it. Her impression of Mrs. Weasley seemed to be stuck on the sight of her through the train window on the way to Hogwarts, with an arm around a little girl on the platform.

"All right, then." Aya sat down and made a token gesture of spearing a piece of steak for Harry as an apology. After all, Harry was Ron's best friend, so it was only natural that Mrs. Weasley remembered him too.

The Duoduo-brand knitted hat on her head bobbed. She had one too, anyway!

The Christmas feast was held at noon. After breakfast, Aya was taken along to play in the snow in the courtyard.

Fred and George were indeed the rowdiest of the lot. Aya and her cat were no match for two Weasleys as nimble as Bludgers. In the end, Xiaohua came crashing down on them and pinned them both in the snow, letting Aya take revenge for being hit with snowballs.

Partway through, Ron came over and sneakily asked Aya how many Galleons she had made that morning.

"Seventy Galleons," Aya answered honestly.

But some people didn't believe her. "Yeah, right."

Aya couldn't help rubbing her ears. "Ron, I think you're a bit like what those people call a repeater."

"...Hey! It's a holiday! A holiday!" Harry reacted quickly and hurriedly held Ron back as he began to heat up.

"Ah, you've also seemed a little moody lately," Aya continued her assessment.

"I!" Ron swore that from today onward, he would hate blockheads forever!

He viciously scooped up some snow from the ground and packed it into a snowball, intending to join the battle. But how could local eleven-year-old little wizards like them compare to Aya? She simply had Xiaohua grow bigger and dog-paddle through the snow, burying Ron.

Amen.

It was Aya's first Christmas feast, and her eyes practically shone as she looked at the lavish spread: a hundred plump roast turkeys, mountains of roast meat, all kinds of delicious little sausages, thick meat gravy... Even the vegetables had been carefully roasted and tossed with butter.

Aya simply couldn't stop filling her plate, and she secretly put a few roast chickens into her backpack too.

The others played with those wizard crackers, which contained all sorts of strange little prizes. As Aya was picking up a steak, a little white mouse that came out of a cracker Harry and Fred were playing with beside her stepped on her foot.

Aya had learned by now that, no matter how much she liked the main meal beforehand, she couldn't eat too much of it, because there was still dessert afterward. After holiday feasts in particular, there would be limited-time holiday desserts. Aya had been won over by the Halloween desserts last time, and today she intended to have a good taste of the Christmas specialties.

There were bright red Christmas puddings. George told Aya that little prizes had been hidden in these puddings in previous years, and whoever found one would have good luck for the whole year. Aya stared at the identical-looking puddings, wanting to find the lucky one and eat it.

Unfortunately, while she was searching, Percy had already found it. It looked like a crescent-shaped piece of silver, and he nearly broke a tooth on it.

Aya watched him clutch his cheek with envy. "My teeth are strong. You should give it to me."

She even thought she could bite that luck to pieces and swallow it.